[edited as per Jutta's request] If you planted it yourself, you could mark it and have google tree follow it.

Google earth has a database of maps, roads, names of cities, and even to the detail of each house and what its address is.

This is to propose that each tree on the globe would be marked, including what species it is and then its history can be followed throughout the years. When was it burnt down. When did it grow again. Perhaps ancient drawings or aerial pictures from wwi showing these trees.

"Following it where?" - exactly. Trees don't just go away every day, so there's a good chance that they stay for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. And we could track their growth or disappearance.
-- pashute, Mar 27 2011

Old images of trees http://www.nostal.c...0%E5%E1%E5%EC%E9%ED
Most of the trees in these images still exist. Some clearly show up on google earth (Just looked up Haifa German colony or walls of Tiberias) [pashute, Mar 28 2011]

for MB: Following Disasters http://www.hewsweb.org/hp/
They are concidering adding plagues, wars and giant hydro-electric or solar projects [pashute, Mar 28 2011]

Cool. I planted trees as a job before, and it would be nice to see how they are coming along before they are harvested for toilet paper. Although, I think some of the trees were for permanent restoration.
-- rcarty, Mar 27 2011


Would you mind describing what the actual idea is? I'm sure many of the readers can come up with something they'd expect for Google <any common noun>, but that may not necessarily match what you have in mind.
-- jutta, Mar 27 2011


Since the events in Japan, it might be useful to be able to follow the movement of radioactive debris on Google Earth.

Actually, it would also now be useful to be able to follow the movements of Japan.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 27 2011


BTW: You should never believe the labels on these map websites. Last week the epicenter of a major earthquake on the border of China and Kazachstan read "No people in a 60 km radius". Zooming in with the satellite images, the epicenter was ON A HOUSE(!) at the edge of A LARGE TOWN (looked like at least 20,000 residents if not more.

I wrote to Hews organization, and asked if Chinese people where not considered population. They said they cannot fix the information which is received automatically from a database. But they changed the words to "No or few people...".
-- pashute, Mar 28 2011


Isn't this just cyber-stalking trees?
-- not_morrison_rm, Mar 28 2011


why ?
-- VJW, Mar 28 2011


There's an interesting fact about trees moving. A guy at Southampton University managed to collect images (everything from woodcuts to oil paintings, through to early photographs) which showed the same locations over periods of several centuries. In each case, the pictures included distinctive and isolated trees, many of which are still alive.

What he found was that, in almost every case, the trees moved sideways by 1-2 metres per century, in a consistent direction (ie, any one tree moved consistently in one direction, across a series of images). So, Google Trees would need to be a dynamic database.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 28 2011


//the trees moved sideways by 1-2 metres per century, in a consistent direction//

Creepy.
-- daseva, Mar 29 2011


//Creepy//

Hang on. I just checked on Wikipedia and it says I dreamed it.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2011


I'm not sure why this would be useful (in the way in which Google Maps or Google Street View are useful). There are lots of kinds of things which Google doesn't currently photograph and index - why trees?
-- hippo, Mar 29 2011


a. Because they are a large part of our oxygen supply.

b. Because trees interest many people.

- To the point of being attached to a single tree. To remembering singular trees. To taking care of single trees. To assigning trees or tree parts to national symbols (Lebanon, Canada etc.)

c. Because trees are permanent like houses, but not as permanent as rocks and mountains.

d. Because trees change the climate around them to a large extent. They also change the environment around them. They change the soil. They are a total eco-system feeding different organisms and life cycles.

e. Because there is "detreefication" - the known deforestation taking place everywhere, but also quick removal of vegetation from the face of earth, in every city and suburb.

Once a tree has been removed without replacement, the area rarely produces the same amount of oxygen (or green color).
-- pashute, Mar 29 2011


OK, a follow up idea, this time it has financial merit.

Link coming soon. Stay tuned.
-- pashute, Nov 29 2012


Every tree in database could be associated with a timeline of short stories, comments, and, of course, pictures uploaded by people. In a decade some trees could become very interesting for its history. The trees are silent witness of the humanity, this idea is a chance for give it a voice. [+]
-- piluso, Nov 29 2012



random, halfbakery